CHICAGO >> He called it a “huge, huge goal.” He took a moment and added another “huge.”

What coach Joel Quenneville saw Antoine Vermette do, in the second overtime of another war-and-peace playoff game, was throw a life raft to a team that had played its best game of this Western Conference Final and still found itself sinking.

They had the Ducks down 3-1 in the third period. More critically, their best players had become their best players again. Jonathan Toews continued his astonishing faceoff work and scored his first goal of the series.

Brandon Saad got his first point, on a shorthanded breakaway that was enabled by referee Chris Rooney bumping into the pursuing Francois Beauchemin.

And suddenly the Blackhawks were down 4-3, because the Ducks apparently substituted a Titleist ProV1 for the puck and could not stop scoring.

They sneaked three pucks behind Corey Crawford in a 37-second span. They tied it, and Quenneville hurriedly used his timeout, and then Ryan Getzlaf shoved a backhand pass into the crease and Corey Perry beat Brandon Keith to the launch point and put the Ducks ahead in his staggering, movie-cowboy way. There was 10:31 left.

What was Quenneville thinking?

“I was thinking that was probably the worst timeout I ever called,” he said.

What was Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau thinking?

“I was thinking, let’s keep our foot on the gas,” he said.

It was the quickest three-goal flurry since the Toronto Maple Leafs did it in 23 seconds to the Atlanta Flames in the first round of the 1979 playoffs. A defenseman named Quenneville got the assist on the third one.

In fact, the United Center announcer had not yet told the crowd the details of Brent Seabrook’s goal, for 3-1, when Jakob Silfverberg cruised behind the net and fed Ryan Kesler out front, for 3-2.

And he was still backed up when Matt Beleskey, who was terrific all evening, accepted a turnover from Vermette and lasered a goal into the bottom right corner of Crawford’s net.

And he was still behind when Getzlaf connected with Perry. Maybe he should have called his own timeout.

Whether the Ducks actually took their mettle off the pedal is debatable, because they kept getting chances through the end of regulation and into both overtimes.

But the Blackhawks tied it when Patrick Kane dribbled a puck past Frederik Andersen, on a power play that came out of a hold by Silfverberg and was not exactly the booster shot the Ducks needed.

“You keep working as hard as you can so you can take advantage of that lucky bounce,” said Toews, who won 20 of 31 faceoffs after winning 21 of 27 in Game 3. “That’s what happened tonight.”

The essential Blackhawks have won two Stanley Cups and have been a constant force in this league since 2009. But to lose a game like this, with the lead and with all their systems firing, might have dazed them into submission.

The Ducks blocked 34 more shots and managed to regain their gap-closing defensive ways after a torrid first period by Chicago. And they got 51 shots on Crawford, who, after all, played at a high level except for those pesky 37 seconds, when the Ducks turned into the Splash Brothers.

“We kept battling back,” said Emerson Etem, who got the Ducks’ only other goal when he tipped a Kyle Palmieri shot past Crawford. “But we’re a speed team and we have to exploit that. We have to keep making the little plays and keeping the puck in their zone. Not just for a while but the whole 60.”

Or, in this case, the whole 85:37.

Patrick Sharp started the game-winning sequence when he got behind Andersen’s net. Vermette eventually shot it from out front. Simon Despres, the Ducks’ defenseman whose goal won Game 3, could not get rid of the rebound that bounced off Anderson, and did not see Vermette following his own shot.

The center, who played for Ottawa when the Senators lost the Stanley Cup Final to the Ducks eight seasons ago, shot at a difficult angle and brought relief to 22,404 fans and one coach.

Meanwhile, the Ducks still haven’t lost a playoff game in regulation. Sixty minutes can’t hold these teams. If seven games aren’t enough, maybe they should take this to Camp David, and see if the Western Conference can find a two-team solution.

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